The Points Guy Destination of the Week: Santiago, Chile

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HotelChatter: Make Your Own Millefeuilles at Le Royal Monceau

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Frontiers: Third Street Station

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Los Angeles Confidential Magazine: Summer Dining

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JustLuxe: Los Angeles Summer Restaurant Week

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Brooke and Greg, Walnut Grove, Moorpark, Ca.

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Maria Del Rey, Jan.28th and 29th, at the Granada Theater in Santa Barbara

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ISSE Hair show at Long Beach

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Dav Rain Boot Photo Shoot

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The Society of Operating Cameramen Lifetime Achievement Awards

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Weekend Wrap Up!

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  I like to deem a whole weekend as "Mother's Day Weekend"...one day just isn't enough!  We deserve to be celebrated for at least a weekend- right?  My Mother's Day weekend started off with me making a rice cake cake for Mike's boss.  Mike's boss is a very "fit" guy, he likes rice cakes, thus a rice cake.  Mike said his boss really appreciated it- so much so that he sent the whole office home early- mission accomplished! ;) Friday afternoon I thoroughly enjoyed my Mother's Day Tea at Carson's kinder-prep class.  He even sang along to the songs.  He's not a singer.  It melted my heart.  Why do I get soooo emotional at any and every performance that involves my kids- even something as simple as a Mother's Day Tea.  I feel like I am constantly thinking to myself, "remember this, remember this" because I know just how fast they are going to be grown and gone out of my house raising kids of their own- I try not to look forward too much, I just want to soak in every single bit of their sweet innocence before we arrive at the "older years."  In Carson's interview about me he said "My mom weighs 100 pounds and she the thing she says most to me: I love you."  I'll take it! Here is my no smile boy with his two wonderful teachers-thank you iPhone for stepping in when I forget my real camera! Saturday morning I whipped up this darling number for a sweet girl going to prom...thinking we need to list several versions of it in the shop...? Saturday morning we had a lazy morning (my favorite) while Dad was on the golf course with his brother and friend.  Once again, I sat there just wanting to soak in all the sweetness of my sweethearts...I grabbed my camera and snapped pictures of them- I want to remember their messy bed head hair, their squishy morning faces, their crooked little people teeth, their gorgeous soft, smooth youthful skin...




 One of Clo's favorite things is to grab my phone and take thousands of pictures on it...she thinks its a game to take as many pictures as she can bf I realize what she's doing and snatch it back..
 Saturday morning my sister and her family drove into town and we took off to the spa for a Mother's Day treat!  LOVE this spa!! they have the most delicious smoothies and food too!
 Here's another sandwich I need to try and replicate- it was a pulled pork sandwich again but had pineapple on it- DELISH! Sunday my sister and I made dinner why the dads watched the kids...have you been to Target lately?  DO NOT GO if you want to stay on any sort of budget- they have DARLING things in every single department right now...such as these cute kitchen towels and plastic wear... I made this YUMMY dip...I'll share the recipe later- it's from one of my favorite cooking friends Ashely- she's one of the best cooks I've met- I'm thinking she needs to do some guest posting on here and share her fabulous recipes! And this morning my sweet boy who is starting kindergarten had "shadow a kindergartner" day today- Why is it that I am having a harder time letting go of him then Kaitlyn- Kaitlyn was so ready to start school- but this boy, he could just lay on the floor all day, lining up his cars and trucks and play...he's not so enthusiastic about going to school and I'm more hesitant to let this one go...bittersweet for sure!
and that was the weekend folks!  We are all sorts of chaos around here as we prepare for a big photo shoot on Thursday...more on that later!  Have a fabulous Tuesday!! XO

Giveaway anyone!??

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photo by http://www.melissalynphotography.com/

 It's been awhile since we've done a giveaway around here...and I'd love to get to know our audience a little better!
Here are the details:
1.) This giveaway is for 2 $50.00 gift certificates
2.) First Entry (required) Leave a comment telling us how you originally heard about Banner Boutique
3.) Gain a second entry by following our blog (just enter your email address in the box to the right)- leave an additional comment telling us you've done so
4.) Gain unlimited additional entries by telling your friends and family about us and have them become a fan on Facebook here: www.Facebook.com/BannerBoutique  Once they've become a fan, have them leave a comment HERE stating who referred them- if one of your friends wins for you by commenting you both get a $50.00 certificate- if you win with one of your other methods of commenting/entering then you get to choose which friend you would like to give the additional certificate to!  Easy peasy!
5.) Contest ends a week from today- next Wednesday night at midnight PST.
Good luck!!

Photo by http://www.melissalynphotography.com/

Recovery- Post Photoshoot

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 We generally end up doing 3-4 BIG photo shoots a year.  Although we LOVE getting lots of fabulous pictures from our amazing photographers all over the globe, we also end up doing several shoots our self- this way we can knock out several hundred new product shots and style them exactly as we want to style them.  Yesterday's shoot was a collaboration with some of our favorite gals over at the TomKat Studio.  Kim needed to get her new 4th of July and Strawberry Party collections photographed and I had several hundred new products needing to be photographed.  It was CRAZY chaos with the a large part of the Banner Boutique team as well as the entire TomKat team as well as about 10 models with their parents- about 30 people were running around like crazy people for about 8 hours at Kim's house...needless to say, the week leading up to yesterday was a tad exhausting.  I am incredibly grateful to Jeni- my right hand girl who was by my side this whole week helping to care for my kids, feeding me breakfast lunch and dinner, helping to keep my house on track etc. etc.  She also accompanied me at the shoot and helped along with all the wonderful parents to corral children and attempt to keep everyone happy!  I am so appreciative to every single person that works with me- they are the best- Kim's team is pretty awesome as well- these wonderfully talented ladies are what allows us to have these at home businesses while still keeping some sort of balance and sanity at the same time! Since I didn't get home until about 10 pm last night, I needed to unload my trunk so I could drive 6 kids to carpool this morning.  Luckily my kids were in a helping mood so Kaitlyn laid with Kellan on some pillows in the trunk while Carson, Chloe and I unloaded the car.  Once the car was unloaded, Kaitlyn was at school and Carson was at a play date, Chloe, Kellan and I headed to Target.
I of course forgot my baby carrier and Kellan was having no part of staying in his baby carrier, so I "borrowed" a baby carrier from the baby aisle hoping to put it nicely back in it's box before we left Target.  Unfortunately, Chloe was sitting in the cart, stepped on a box of chicken broth therefore spilling it on the box that the carrier went in- needless to say, I ended up purchasing my 3rd baby carrier.  Awesome. It always seems that when I have a photo shoot, the days are particularly crazy and I don't get to do much cooking or hanging with my kids as much as I usually get to- the photo shoots are one part of this business that I can't turn over to somebody else- so on the days following a photo shoot I seem to crave time with my kids, my family, my friends.  So...since I had a friend who had just moved into her new house on the day of the photo shoot and I didn't get to go help her yet, I decided I needed to try out my new goodies from Kim's new shop and make her dinner! Kim just launched her fabulous new online party supply store- it's filled with goodies like this- before I left her house last night she loaded me up with a variety of supplies to try out...a little slice of heaven... I decided it would be perfect to use some of them to prepare Melissa's dinner in so that she didn't have to worry about returning any dishes to me- and bonus, it made the dinner so much cuter!- everything was disposable thanks to Kim except the tray I delivered everything on- I bought the tray at Target and used that as her housewarming gift and just tied a bow to it!   Below is what we ended up with: I LOVED baking the cupcakes in these sturdy cupcake cups- this recipe is actually for an 8X10 pan cake but because these liners are sturdy I was able to cook the cake in these cups and then people can eat them with a fork because there is gooey carmel-y goodness in the middle that wouldn't hold up to regular cupcake liners- brilliant! I also had fun cooking individual chicken pot pies in the disposable white paper cups and I skewered the fruit onto the paper straws to make it a little more festive looking!!  I made the same dinner for my family- it's so funny how excited the kids get when you make individual portions of anything and bake cupcakes in fun liners and skewer fruit on festive straws- these are the things that kids get excited about!I will be back soon to share recipes!  Until then- have a wonderful weekend!!

Chocolate Toffee Caramel Cupcakes

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 On Friday I talked about my friend Kim who just launched her online shop where you can get all kinds of party goodies and fun bake wear/disposable liners etc...and how I got to try some of it out while making dinner for my friend Malisa who just moved- I LOVED that not only did these cute disposable items make the presentation so much cuter, but it was so nice to bring dinner in things that she didn't have to worry about returning to me. Another shout out to Target (pretty much I get everything at Target at this stage in my life- if Target doesn't have it, I don't know it exists...venturing out to more then one store with my brood right now just isn't in the cards for me)...back to the story- so I was at Target and I saw this darling tray and I knew my friend Malisa was wanting to introduce this color into some of her new decor at her new house so I thought- perfect!  It's a housewarming gift and I can deliver dinner to her on it! So on to these cupcakes...errr, cake that I turned into cupcakes.  The back story on this recipe- I'm pretty sure at least 75% of the population has heard of or tried this recipe- this is a recipe I grew up with- the technical name I was told is "Better then Sex Cake"- but because many of you, like me, don't really want to use the "S" word with your kids (bc who knows what kinds of conversations will start from that and maybe you do or don't want to get into that while you're making/eating cake- your call), I grew up with calling it "Poke a hole cake" (which may or may not be a better name?) but at least it makes sense to the kids because you poke holes in the cake.
Anyway- I usually make this cake in a 9 X 13 cake pan- glass usually but you can use metal.  Since I was bringing dinner to Malisa and wanted something disposable- and bc my kids love anything that's made into individual portions- I was excited to use these baking cups bc they are sturdier then regular cupcake liners and would hold up to the caramel and sweetened condensed milk that we would be pouring into the cake therefore requiring that it be eaten with a fork. Here are the ingredients- you can use actual Heath or Skor Bars OR this new bag of Heath Toffee Bits that now come with the chocolate on them as well- they used to just sell them with the toffee bits, but now it's Toffee AND chocolate if you want - nice! Bake your chocolate cake, according to the directions in a 9 x 13 pan or fill these liners 2/3 of the way full- I like the cake to peek out a bit at the top- or you can fill them less if you want the cake as a whole to be more contained within the liner- say if you're making them for kids- they would be a tad less messy that way- I was going for aesthetic presentation here though... Mine took about 17 minutes to cook in these liners- but be sure to check on them starting at 15 minutes or so- ovens vary you know... so here's the poke a hole part- let the cakes/cake stand for just 1-2 minutes and then poke at least 3 holes in each cupcake (or lots of holes in a full size cake)... grab your sweetened condensed milk, put two holes in it like this (see below), and start pouring it all over each cake/cupcake- on the cupcakes you will need to be much more careful then on a cake- the cupcakes require you to go slowly so they don't over flower whereas the cake is easy because it won't over flow...


 Once you get the milk on, stick your caramel in the microwave for about 35 seconds to get it nice and liquidy- not too lava hot liquidy- you know- easy to pour... and dump that sweet goodness all over too...Let them sit on the counter for about 30 minutes or so to soak in and then stick these guys in the fridge and let them cool and set up while you're letting them get cold- you could make these cute little shish-kabobs? I used these straws, cut them at an angle to make them pointy, and skewered the fruit onto these straws- I would recommend doing it right before you serve them otherwise they will get soggy since they're made out of paper ;)
 Once your cakes are cool, top them with whipped topping and sprinkle generously with the candy bar pieces- I was in a hurry and used the bagged heath bar pieces but I think I prefer the actual candy bars cut up- that way you get bigger chunks- and I actually put more then what you see pictured here usually...fyi ;)
Here's the recipe:
Chocolate Toffee Caramel Cupcakes
1 box devils food cake, baked according to directions1 can sweetened condensed milk1 jar caramel ice cream topping (find it by the ice cream) *I like the Mrs. Richardson's brand- there are cheaper brands too though that are still pretty darn good1 large tub cool whip6 Skor or Heath Bars- or the bag of Heath Bar bits
Bake cake according to directions.  Poke holes all throughout cake after it cools for only 1-2 minutes.  Pour 1/2-1 full can sweetened condensed milk over top- depends on how gooey you like things- I like them not too gooey so I use about 2/3 of the can- same thing with the Carmel- pour 1/2-1 full jar of the carmel- I use about 2/3 as well.  Let it sit on the counter for 30 minutes to soak in and then put it in the fridge to get cold- at least 2-3 hours.  Top with whipped topping right before serving and sprinkle with candy chunks!  Enjoy!!Tomorrow I'll be sharing the recipe for the pot pies we made... :)  Have a wonderful Sunday!
ohhhhh- and don't forget- Monday, May 21 is the last day to grab these items at a discounted price, click HERE for details and HERE for the links: